Copyright William Read 1998 - -Send email if you like or dislike something to:
email: wrezzzad@ucsd.edu - - (remove the zzz in the address!)The Aimless Quest of Bungston Shag
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12. Chapter 13. Chapter 14. Chapter 15. Chapter 16. Chapter 17. Chapter 18. Chapter 19. Chapter 20. Epilogue.Chapter 19
Bungston wiped his brow after the frenetic burst of activity and sat on the face of the prone maiden. He held up a hand for Robigus to shake. "Robigus, that was the nick of time. I couldn't have held out another minute. And I must say that that mildew performance you did beats the stew out of any magic trick of mine. And Nap, a very fine job braining that jerk - I think anything less than big silver would have been useless."
"Didn't look like Bob was cutting him, and then I figured any guy who lived with that woman upstairs was bound to be a werewolf," rasped Napoleon. "So I took the candelabra, since you always say that's what people use. But still, I couldn't believe he got back up!"
The mildew god nodded stoically. "I had searched but two or three rooms when I heard screams as from a crowd of madmen - I hastened here and found you beleaguered by undead creatures. The dead are very vulnerable to mildews, so as soon as I ascertained their nature..."
"You did great. And nice swordfight with that guy too; you would have made him a pincushion if he weren't a freaking werewolf. Speaking of which, let's see how he's doing." Bungston picked up the three pronged poker and beat a rhythmic tattoo on the long metal box. "Yo, Count! Are you ready to apologize and hand over your treasure?" There was no reply, so Bungston turned back to Robigus. "You know, this guy is a total jerk, and if we leave him he'll probably go on lopping off heads and mounting people on pointed sticks. But I hate to kill him in cold blood."
"Which would be no mean feat - he seems well nigh invulnerable."
"We could beat him with the candelabra some more," suggested Napoleon. He picked up the badly bent instrument and looked it over. "I don't think it's good for much else."
Bungston remembered something. He jabbed suggestively at Napoleon's maroon shoulder, which looked more tousled than usual. "You sly dog. I know what you've been up to." Napoleon mumbled in embarrassment, but then got serious. "But say, Bung..." The mutant's voice was hushed, and therefore so raspy he was difficult to understand. "I think I got bit by her - that werewolf woman. A few times. Is there a cure?"
Bungston shook his head sadly. "Nope. You're going to grow fur and fangs at the full moon like the rest of them." He suddenly stared wide-eyed at the shaggy mutant and jumped back in fright. "Oh no! Bob, look out! It's happening already!"
Robigus glared at confused Napoleon in alarm, but then both understood and yelled at the wizard, who was overcome laughing at his own humor. Napoleon was about to wreak some sort of vengeance on the wizard while he was doubled up chuckling, but then was distracted sniffing the air. "Uh, guys, I'll be back to help search for treasure in a bit." He got up and quickly left the torture chamber.
Bungston followed to the door and dimly saw the woman in the blue dress waiting for Napoleon at the end of the corridor. "Hey lady, no biting this time! I need his hide whole!" She ignored him, but Napoleon grinned a toothy canine grin over his shoulder. Bungston went back to the firelit torture chamber.
Robigus was beetling his brow in concern at the iron maiden under its heap of braziers and cages and medicine balls. Bungston sat back down on its head. "Bob, I can't say that I found our magic thing. Any luck with you?" The mildew god shook his head, losing his chestplate in the process; he was now down only to Bungston's ginkgo tree design nylon baggies. "Maybe we can get this butthead to hand it over, now that we've softened him up. And maybe get some clothes for you, or you're going to freeze." Bungston noticed that the mildew patch on his arm had become grotesquely hairy, undoubtedly because of Robigus' mildew ambiance earlier. He borrowed Robigus' shortsword to shave it back down to an innocuous splotch.
Robigus craned his neck as if listening, then pointed at the iron maiden under Bungston. "I think the warlock speaks. Do you hear him?" It was true; muffled words rose from within the Iron Maiden. "What?" Bungston pressed his ear to the metal, but between the thick case and the bucket on his head, the sorcerer inside was incomprehensible. Whatever he was saying had a certain rhythm to it that worried Bungston. He caught what sounded like an infernal name and a vow of sacrifice. "Cut that out! Shut up!" yelled the wizard, banging on the lid with the poker. The chant from within grew faster and higher pitched, and a dark miasma began swirling over the pit.
"BAFFLED CRUMPLED GLASSLIKE FLAGSTAFF PORTEND AND BAKE OF GREAT PROPORTION! DAD-BLASTED FOAM AND WARMER DAFT DRAFTED MUFFLER BUSTERS! STUFF!" Fiberglass batting bulged from the cracks around the lid of Iron Maiden, drowning the mystic chant still more. "Dang it, that'll just make him itchy. Whoah Bob, we're not out of the woods yet." Tapering red worms writhed through the demonic cloud over the pit, anchored in a nebulous substance which resolved itself into a thing like a big yellow ball. It had hundreds of red dredlock worms which looked like they might have hairy barbs on them, or mouths at the tips, and the whole mass floated without apparent support over the pit. A clear fluid oozed from its feeler pores and collected on the bottom of the body, dripping into the void below. The yellow ball had two tiny sharklike eyes but no mouth, and the eyes stared malignantly at the two tidbits in the corner. Robigus held up his sword bravely; Bungston considered making a grab for the silver candelabra but he would have to move closer to the demon to get it.
The demon spoke in a dozen voices from a dozen tentacle mouths. It spoke wet sibilant English. "There iss no esscape. I will ssuck your marrow and drink your meninges."
"Yeah, I'll give you something tangy to drink!" Bungston slapped Robigus on the shoulder. "Bail out Bob; get Nap and run. I'll do some magic and hold this thing off." Robigus backed away uncertainly, then left the wizard facing the horror from the abyss. Bungston took inventory; maybe that red ring he had just acquired would do some good?
Robigus ran back into the room, rejoining Bungston. Familiar thunderous footfalls resounded down the hall, and wizard and warrior backed into the corner farthest from both the demon in the pit and the door to the torture chamber. Faint screams echoed from far away, and the horntoad-headed demon which had visited the cabana pounded slowly in, its hooves leaving acrid smoking indentations in the flagstones. It was no beauty, but it certainly looked a lot better than the necromancer's pet from the pit. Its glowing eyes fixed on Bungston, and it leveled a knotted finger. "You, mortal. Render unto me the Chazbirglath. You shall not escape a second time." Bungston grinned nervously.
Then Firestorm's demon noticed the other demon, and it stood and gaped its toothy toad mouth at this new player. The red tentacled thing floated several feet away from the pit, and the two demons confronted each other. Neither spoke nor moved. Napoleon chose this moment to saunter jauntily through the door. He stopped and bugged his eyes at the infernal pair, then did an about-face and jogged back out.
The red tentacled demon was the first to speak. "Why have you come, brother?" it said in chorus from many mouths. "These mortals have not said the Words. I have been promised great sacrifice to murder them, so stand aside."
"I am bound by another to recover an object possessed by the one called Bungston," answered the hooved demon. "He did trick me once before, but I shall not be tricked again."
Bungston stepped up to this unholy conference. "Hey, listen to him, wormy," he said, addressing the oozing yellow sphere from the pit. "You leave me alone or he'll stomp you into Vaseline. I have something he needs."
The wormy demon replied immediately, apparently a faster thinker than Firestorm's tracker demon. "My brother shall take what he needs from you, and then you and your comrade shall be mine."
"Yeah? Well, what if I don't give it to him right away?"
The toad-headed demon stepped closer, its gnarled and smoky hand reaching for him. "I shall bite you away piece by piece until you render it unto me. Yet I shall leave much for you, sister." Bungston did not like the direction this conference was going at all. His crewcut lit up as his cerebrum shifted into high gear. "Wait! Wait!"
"I shall not wait." The demon's hand gripped Bungston's midriff and turned him upside-down, bringing his poor feet close to the mighty jaws, which opened to receive them. Bungston could feel the heat through his clothes.
"You cannot harm me, for I am that which you seek! I am the Chazbirglath! I am the living talisman!" Bungston triumphantly pulled back his sleeve, revealing the name Chazbirglath written in smeary black magic marker for the world to see. "Unhand me, demon."
The demon closed its mouth, abandoning its intent to nibble Bungston's boots. "Now I shall bring you to my master, and I shall be free."
Hearing this, the floating yellow sphere reached out for Bungston's head with a dozen thin tentacles, each with a lamprey-like mouth at the tip. Bungston, still upside-down in the grip of Firestorm's demon, did a sit up to miss the deadly worms and wound up wrapped around the huge knobby hand that held him. "Look, demon!", he yelled into the infernal eyes a foot from his face. "Sis is trying to shred me! I am the Chazberglath! Save me!"
The hooved demon reached out with his free hand and grasped the questing tentacles, then tore them off in a spray of ichor and threw them over its shoulder. The demon from the pit shrieked from all of its mouths and lashed out with still more tentacles, several of which bored into the hooved demon's legs. The roar shook the castle, and Firestorm's demon dropped Bungston and bounded on top of its levitating sister, knocking the yellow ball to the ground with its great weight. The horntoad demon opened its mighty maw wide to take a bite and wormy tentacles lashed around it, then both creatures were enveloped in infernal smoke. For an instant the cries of the abyss could be heard, then the smoke cleared and the demons had vanished.
Bungston shook the sweat out of his crewcut and swaggered back over to Robigus, who had stood quietly in the corner the entire time. "You alright, Bob? Gees, lucky Firestorm's demon buddy showed up when it did. I'm not sure which of those two would win a scrap, but whichever one does won't be in any shape to come after us afterwards."
Robigus stared in amazement at Bungston. "You told the demon you were that which it should protect? An amazing stratagem!"
Bungston made with a manly monobrow and gingerly rubbed his legs, which were a little black and blue after being manhandled by the horntoad demon. "You should know by now, Bob. Stuff like that just comes to me. The best thing is, though, summoning up that disgusting yellow coot will have taken a lot of fight out of our bearded pal in here." Bungston kicked the iron maiden, which was quiet. "You don't just work a spell like that and then go do kung-fu for dessert. They take a lot of energy. So help me unpack him." Bungston started shoving furniture off of the iron maiden, and Robigus helped.
Napoleon soon returned. "You got rid of the demons, Bung? Good." He did not seem to require further explanation, but helped unwind the chains and ropes tying the iron maiden. Once it was open, Bungston used the three-pronged poker to pick out the ream of fiberglass insulating the sorcerer, and then pulled the bucket off of his head. The man blinked dully and sat up inside the maiden. Napoleon got the candelabra ready just in case he got rowdy. "Hey, how come he's pink, Bung? Was he always this way?"
"I thought black on black was boring. Plus to get him mad, but it didn't work." The sorcerer either did not understand English or did not care; he just sat in a stupor on the crushed remains of the party hats. Bungston switched back to Transylvanian. "That was an ugly demon you summoned. I bet when it recovers from the spanking I gave it it's not going to be very happy with you." The sorcerer looked at Bungston hopelessly; he definitely was deficient in vim and vigor. "So, back to the reason I came. Magic stuff. I know you've got some, and I want to take it." Bungston pulled the man's pink and tattered bearskin off and shook it in case there were more toads or rings inside. He handed it to Robigus, who needed something to wrap up in. The warlock looked skinny without it.
He stared dully at Bungston, his painted face showing a few creases from the episode inside the bucket. He said nothing. He looked beaten. "Wake up. Wake up." Bungston tugged the man's sticky pink beard. The sorcerer stood up and slowly walked to the fireplace, Napoleon following with candelabra ready. He lit a torch and handed it to Napoleon, then indicated for Bungston to follow and went out the door. They followed.
There was no sign of the wolfwere woman in the hall; Bungston figured she had wisely hidden herself. The sorcerer took them back past the row of cells, up the stairs and into the study room. He slid a panel and revealed a secret compartment, inside which was a small chest. He set this on the table. "Therein lies that which you seek."
Bungston was about to open it, but then his old paranoia kicked in. Too easy. He looked over at the necromancer, who was watching with shifty eyes. "You open it."
The sorcerer started, then looked nervously at the door. Then he looked at Napoleon and his candelabra after the big mutant got in front of the door. "I do not care to open it. You may open it."
"But I do not care to either. My fingers are sore from playing banjo. You open it." Bungston put his hand in his pocket and brought it up wearing the red ring he had purloined from the man. He wiggled his ring finger.
Bungston's multi-knuckled ring finger wiggled a singular wiggle; either this or the red ring had an effect. The sorcerer blinked, then indicated Robigus with his chin. "Have the god open it. I too am weary."
"Nope. Nice try, but now I know that there is some sort of trap waiting for whoever opens that box. Probably something nasty, knowing you." Bungston drew himself up and made a fist with his ring hand. His voice grew terrible. "No more of this touchie feelie mumbo jumbo! I grow weary of your tricks, your fumbling spells, your hogwash balderdash tantrum torturing of regular joes! I've got a four-lobed pineal as big as a lime and I'm a hundred percent piezoelectric!" His crewcut shot a spark for punctuation. "Now I've had a bellyfull - you better bring me to the big magic! Before I get mad!" He waved the red ring around to highlight his concern.
Bungston felt certain that a lot of what he had said had not made sense in Transylvanian; he had felt obliged to borrow some foreign words to create the effect he wanted. But the message was clear. The sorcerer slumped and walked to the door; Napoleon let him through and then followed.
He went back down to the dungeon and stopped at the metal-sheathed door Bungston had knocked on earlier. To one side of the door was a tan stone set in the wall, and he pressed this. A scraping like metal on stone began, accompanied by a frenzied roar similar to the one Bungston had heard earlier. Robigus grabbed the sorcerer's thin shoulder. "You shall enter first," the mildew god commanded in English. Bungston thought that after his latest antics that might be a good idea, so he said it over again in Transylvania. The sorcerer complied, and they trooped in behind him.
Something crouched in the shadows behind bars in the back of the room; Bungston could see how the cage wall would lower and sweep across the room on tracks in the ceiling. It was pretty clever, and Bungston complimented his host on the design. Whatever was back there was now quiet; no doubt wary of the necromancer. Bungston got an impression of many coils and white bony claws, but he did not want to take his eyes off of the necromancer too long. The necromancer in turn paid no attention the creature, and led Bungston to a stone lying in a pile of crushed velvet. The stone was carved with glyphs and runes, and it had a fist-size indentation worn into it, which looked crusty with old blood. Besides crust, in this indentation was a small brown object about the size of a racquet ball. The owner of the castle, pink bearded and small without his coat, gently picked up the object and held it out.
Bungston looked at it, then walked to a new angle and looked again. He sniffed it, then motioned for Napoleon to sniff it. It looked like a hairball. "What is this thing?" he asked. Napoleon tapped the lycanthropic sorcerer on the head with the bent candelabra to keep him in line.
"It is a bezoar of the old goddess Waldborg," he answered. "It possesses a formidable spirit." His eyes grew crafty again, but it was a different sort of crafty - cringing and hopeful instead of evil. "Now, you and I, lord Bungston, we are men of knowledge, of power," he murmured. "And the bezoar can serve us both, and well - I know of which I speak. We need not be enemies. Certain you know that which..."
"A bezoar!" exclaimed Bungston. "That means it is a hairball! A goddess hairball! I thought only cats and goats and stuff got hairballs. You'd think goddesses would be more careful."
"I thought it was a hairball from the start," stated Napoleon, who had a certain understanding of such matters. "You know, I saw a movie where there was a guy who had a hairball he could ask questions. An ox hairball."
"Probably not much smarter than the ox," observed Bungston. "Should we ask this one something? Hello, how are you?" he asked the hairball. There was no immediate reply.
"There was a witch in it, I think," said Napoleon. "You know what I mean, Bob?"
Robigus did not. Bungston turned back to the necromancer. "Well, thanks after all. I would have bought it from you if you hadn't been such a jerk." The sorcerer did not see fit to reply to this. Having achieved the object of his quest, Bungston's thoughts turned to what to do with the evil sorcerer. Probably he should just kill him; if it were a book or a movie that's what he would advise. But maybe that wouldn't be necessary - maybe he could just lock him out of the castle. Without his red magic ring or his hairball or his toad or coat he didn't seem to amount to much. Except he was a werewolf, which was pretty bad in and of itself. Bungston tossed and caught the bezoar, trying to decide what to do. "Bob, what should we do with this guy?"
Before Robigus could answer, the sorcerer planted a hand on his bare chest and gave him a tremendous shove. It sent the tall gray warrior reeling, and the sorcerer dashed past him toward the door. Napoleon had wandered over to the cage to get a better look at the creature hiding back in the shadows, and was too far away to interfere. The three adventurers took off after the fleeing sorcerer, but Bungston paused to wrap the hairball and its throne stone in the crushed velvet and stash it in his Voyageur pack.
The sorcerer made it up through the castle and out the front door before Napoleon caught up with him. The man shifted into wolfman form and turned to face Napoleon in the light of the setting moon. The sorcerer qua werewolf apparently did not realize that Napoleon was just a mutant and not a supernatural, because he hesitated as might be expected when confronting another lycanthrope twice his size. Napoleon stood his ground and growled back. Then Bungston and Robigus arrived and Bungston menacingly waved the usurped red ring. The sorcerer dropped to all fours and took on full wolf form, then sped off at top speed into the woods. Bungston waved the ring some more for luck, although he did not have the foggiest idea how to make it shoot energy or do anything else. As they stood in the door, the woman in the blue dress walked out past them, in human form and carrying a bag over her shoulder and the crossbow. She cast an arch look at Napoleon, then strode off into the forest, her long hair tossing in the wind. She went in a different direction from the sorcerer.
"She didn't like him much," said Napoleon.
"It is unseeming that a woman should venture alone into such a wood," worried Robigus. "Perhaps we should see her to a new haven."
Bungston lifted half his monobrow. "Bob, you thought she was going to kill us all a few hours ago, remember?"
"Yet I was in error - she proved friendly."
"I'll say she did. Maybe Bob's right," added Napoleon.
"Guys, guys!" expostulated Bungston. "You forget, she can whip her weight in warthogs! Or twice her weight, or as many warthogs as were interested, since they couldn't hurt her. Her dress would get ripped up though..." Bungston pinched his chin, which was getting stubbly. "I hope she has a spare in her bag. But there's barely any warthogs native to this area. Not locally, I'm sure."
Once again, Bungston's razor-keen reason won the day; both dog and god agreed to let the wolwere female leave alone. As the woman disappeared into the trees, a shadowy figure left the woods and walked across the corpse-studded clearing toward the three adventurers. She gave the wolwere woman a wide berth and was ignored in return. "Bung? Nap? I sure hope it's you guys!" a familiar voice called.
"Irn!" sang Bungston. "We did it! We finished our quest! We fought werewolves and Napoleon got laid!"
"Shuddup!" yelled Napoleon, cuffing Bungston on the head hard enough to send him sprawling on the ground.
"I am pleased to see you Irn," said Robigus. "How is it you located us? I do not believe Bungston told you of his intent to come here."
"I'll say werewolves!" said Irn, still trying to sort out Bungston's proclamation. Her normal placid expression was in danger of losing out to a paranoid one, and the adventuress gripped her bug duster with white knuckles. "I was going to bail bigtime in a second - thought maybe I'd missed you or showed too late. This place you picked is nowhere to wander by yourself - I had to hide up a tree - these woods are crawling with the creepiest creeps I've seen. Now I'm sap city." She paused for a moment and noticed Robigus' fur coat. "That's a beano bearskin you have, Bob. Run over by a lawnmower?"
"The screaming in the wood is caused by the chubby worthless kind of lemur," explained Robigus, whose coat was indeed trailing long strips. "But yes, we three did battle with a warlock who could take the form of a wolf - this coat was his and it was I who slashed it so. Together we defeated him, and a legion of the undead. And Bungston defeated two demons. Perhaps you saw the prints left at the cabana - those were of a great demon who sought to thwart our quest."
"Demons now!" exclaimed Irn. "Bungston, I get more and more impressed you magical dude."
"Well, that's what I'm for." The tan wizard walked back from where he had retreated from Napoleon's aggressions. "But how did you find us? We're too far from water to use the wrapped carriage."
Irn motioned for them to follow. At the edge of the forest where the threesome had earlier paused to plot, there was a newly sprouted ring of mushrooms. "Remember what you said about a dead cat and a bag of fertilizer? Well I tried it and it worked, except all you had for dead cats were these rubber kittens, and instead of fertilizer I used some socks from your laundry bin, some of the Bobster's sandals and Nap's leather chew toy.
"Not my chew toy!" wept Napoleon.
"I have socks?" asked Bungston.
"Not any more. I think Bob's sandals were what did the trick, though." A deep throated call rumbled through the woods from not far away, and Irn whirled and pointed her bug duster in its direction. A wisp of smoke rose from its nozzle. "I don't know what the hell that is, but it's no chubby lemur. And its been getting closer. Let's go back, quick."
Bungston shone the ultralamp in the direction of the call, but saw nothing. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I've only done a mushroom ring once. How does it work?"
Irn spun her bug duster around her waist and shoulders like a set of nunchucks, then stopped it with two fingers. "Best to get a running start, or if its a certain type of shroom ring you might just wind up dancing with fairies for a few dozen years. Best to have a mouthful of booze, too, to keep your mind distracted. Can't concentrate or you might start dancing." She backed the threesome up and pointed her bug duster at Robigus' mouth. "Open wide." Robigus complied and she shot a spray of something fragrant into his mouth. He coughed and doubled over, but Irn got behind him and propelled him toward the ring. He stumbled off through the trees. Napoleon was next, and Irn gave him a triple dose of whatever liqueur she had conjured. As the mutant ran off toward the mushroom ring, the throaty call sounded again; it sounded very close.
"Chances are that thing is just a lemur," said Bungston reassuringly. "Noise can be deceiving. We haven't met anything here we couldn't whip."
"That's cause you're so ripping lucky," said Irn. "Alright dragon slayer, you can bring up the rear. Make it through - I need my bug duster back." She gave herself a shot, handed the bug duster to Bungston and lunged away.
Bungston pointed the bug duster in his mouth and sprayed, then took off running. Whatever Irn had whipped up had a very pleasant flavor, a sort of citrus creosote pastis. He swished it around, dodged past a tree, and then heard the elf music. It had a great beat and he couldn't help shuffling his feet a little in response. At his speed shuffling feet were disastrous; he tripped over a root, inhaled his mouthful of liqueur and lunged into the ring.
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